We feel kind of bad for finding this amusing. Except not really. Uh, go Bears?

Cal Band is Brutal [YouTube], via California Golden Blogs

* While you were out drunk at 12:30 p.m. yesterday, fashionistas were totally judging your look. [BARE]

* If you weren’t among the thousands at Memorial Stadium or in the rabble of Tightwad Hill, you can catch up on Cal Band’s halftime show. Oh, nostalgia. [YouTube]

* Help the little bear out. This looks like a future Clog photo. [Photo Blog]

* Scared for finals? Maybe you should’ve just gone elsewhere and paid for your A’s. [Paper Trail]

Image Source: Daily Cal
Earlier: The Same Old, Same Old

It’s hard out here for a kid. We’re all in favor of non-obese children, but sometimes a kid’s got to do what a kid’s got to do. If fourth graders out there gotta sell sugar to make a buck for a field trip, then that’s just the way things go. You hear us, California Legislature? No one should be subjected to vegan carrot cake against their will, damn it! No one! [Chron]

The economic crisis hit the Cal band hard. For the first time in years, they’ve had to miss away games due to lack of moolah. This is sad. Are they at least still allowed to sell unhealthy food? Or are college kids also too young to decide when they can afford to splurge and eat themselves a donut? [Daily Cal]

Earlier: UC Berkeley Staff Joy, Woes and No-No’s

We’ve also heard of “sexually active band geeks,” a concept which we suppose was fabricated and then left up to interpretation. And interpret, they did–UC Davis bandsmen are reported to have driven their new band director to the point of filing a sexual harassment complaint with the university. Here’s a condensed list of their raunchiness:

*On last year’s road trip to a football game, men and women stripped down to their underwear to carry out their “naked van” tradition; they also wrote “I (heart) BOOBS” in masking tape on the band.

*Four band members dropped their pants for a photographer at band picnic day to commemorate an actual event where four other drunken band members that got caught urinating in a dorm elevator.

*The trombone players sent their new band director a Christmas card with a picture of Santa Claus and a message that read “I saw you masturbating.”

SFGate goes into greater detail about UC Davis band members’ “lewd” acts, “sexualized” comments and drunken hazing. They also include a lengthy list of other college bands that have been cited or banned for various acts of misconduct. We’d like to point out the long list of offenses committed by the folks we love to hate across the bay.

The UC Davis Cal Aggie Band–much like our own California Marching Band–is student-run, which makes for a sticky situation. The band director is their first in four years, and he has no power to expel musicians that misbehave from the band.

There really isn’t much that can be done in terms of forcing a quick rehearsal on manners and public decency. If band members want to better themselves, they’ll do it, and if the university prefers no band to rowdy band, they’ll take appropriate actions. Society has little reason to fret over the wild and crazy kids; we’re pretty confident that our friends over at Davis will grow up to be responsible and contributing citizens. (Maybe … ) Really, bringing in a PhD-pursuing, 44-year-old man to a college marching band is kind of like inviting your dad to party with you at your frat house (or co-op … or dorm room, for that matter).

We say: If someone should commit an illegal act, they will answer to the law. If the band, or the university should face charges for the acts of one or a few students, then the band will face a suspension of some sort. As for the band director, on the other hand, we only have one question:

What did you expect?

Go home. Teach high school, where they might actually listen when you ask them to keep their pants on.

Image Source: markagibson under Creative Commons, edited by April Angeles
Director Files Complaint about UC Davis Band [SFGate]
In Other News: Cal Aggie Marching Band, Viruses on College Campuses [Notes from the Field]

Yep, it’s that special time of year that’s like every other special time of year—Homecoming is back! (Though we could have gone with midterm season.) Berkeley has a Homecoming you can take pride in: Unlike other campus festivities like Caltopia, you can get lots of free things during Homecoming.

And unlike Cal Day, there will be tons of lectures by Berkeley professors that will make even the most balanced jack of all trades feel inadequate. And unlike the Big Game, there will be a rally with mass, cultish chanting in an effort to magically secure a win for the upcoming football game.

To get you all in the spirit, the Clog decided to pick out a few events for which you should keep your eyes out:

Wednesday
Check out the Acacia House Fraternity Band from noon to 1 p.m. on Upper Sproul Plaza as they play only cover songs—no originals. The song lineup will include such goodies as Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and Boston’s “More Than A Feeling.”

Also check out Picnic Day on Memorial Glade from 11:00 a.m. to 1 p.m. The food lineup will include such goodies as downtown Oakland and Berkeley restaurant samples. Just remember—if you’re going to play Frisbee, don’t do it on the west side of the glade. It’s treacherous.

Thursday
Dance and Casino Night promises to be entertaining at the very least. Come dressed in your fanciest shmanciest suit or dress to dance or play Blackjack. Just don’t bleed out the corner of your eye or else the chiseled British man with the incomparable wit will take $100 million from your secret bank account.

Friday
Get some free Fenton’s ice cream at the Homecoming Headquarters Student Tent from noon to 1 p.m. We admit, originally we weren’t going to post this—until we remembered we have a midterm during that exact block of time. Oh well, we had some Fenton’s on Sunday anyway.

Later in the day will be the Rally Committee’s traditional pre-rally barbecue and rally. The barbecue, as it turns out, is free and so is the rally. But rallies hardly fill up an empty stomach … unless they’re some sort of, we don’t know, food rally. Do they even have those?

Saturday
Out of respect for completeness, we’ll urge you to go to the Homecoming football game, even though you probably already are planning on it. Kickoff is at 12:30 p.m. which means you should probably get there about 5 hours early.

The “Thanks to Berkeley …” PhotoBooth will be taking even more portraits from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. We hear participants even get candy as recompense. A stranger asking young people to be photographed in a covered booth in exchange for candy? You’d be foolish not to do it!

Sunday
Richard Goode, a pianist with the necessary flair to do justice to such classical greats as Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven and Bach, will be playing at Zellerbach Hall promptly at 3 p.m. Tickets are available from Cal Performances.

Image Source: minwoo under Creative Commons
Homecoming [Site]
Student Homecoming Week [Site]

Can we get a “Cal Band great”?

Thanks to Gordon Chien for the tip.

Cal Band – Video Game Show [YouTubeM]

Currently a student of the department of architecture here at Berkeley, Erb decided to go back to school after a career in banking because she wanted to “indulge her long-term interest in design.” With dream No. 1 well on its way to fulfillment, playing clarinet for the Cal Band was the second dream she was to act upon, even though she is more than 20 years older than her band mates.

We should note that in addition to playing in the Cal Band and being a student in one of the most overworked departments at Berkeley, Cynthia Erb is a wife, has three children and lives almost 20 miles away from campus. Compare that to those of us young’uns who can hardly manage to walk to Shattuck Avenue from campus–or those who would rather not try to balance a job, extracurriculars and midterms with Facebook-time and partying.

Can we get a “You go, girl?”

Image Source: Ian Buchanan, Daily Cal
47-year-old Retired Banker Follows Dream with Cal Band [Contra Costa Times]